Horseshoes are commonly made from metals such as steel or aluminum. Although such shoes give a measure of protection to the animal, they have certain drawbacks. The metal shoes have very little resilience or shock absorbing ability when the horse is ridden on hard surfaces and this may lead to lameness in the horse. Furthermore, such metal shoes add more weight than is desirable on race horses.
For these reasons, a number of attempts have been made to find lightweight, shock absorbent material for the fabrication of horseshoes. Use of a high molecular weight polyethylene is proposed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,496,002. In U.S. Pat. No. 3,513,915 a shoe is described which is made from a rubber sheet containing small metal fragments such as steel filings distributed throughout the rubber. Horseshoes made from polyurethanes are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,469,631 and 3,494,422. Further, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,206,811 and 4,235,292, horseshoes are made from plastic surrounding a steel yoke.
While the horseshoes described in the references cited overcome some of the drawbacks of metal horseshoes, there still exists a need for an economical, lightweight horseshoe with good resilience and wear-resistant properties that can be easily formed and attached to the horse's hooves.
We have now discovered a lightweight material with good wear-resistant properties. This material is suitable not only for making horseshoes, but also for making protective pads that are inserted between the horseshoes and the horse's hooves.